I got a job offer from BNP Paribas. What happened next would not shock you!

I rarely get mails which offer me jobs. In fact, I rarely get mails. Solitary reaper, et al. Which explains why I got so enamored and impacted by this mail forwarded to me by one Probaldwip Bakshi from SREI BNP Paribas, offering me a job as “Assistant Manager – ARM – Opportunity Management” at Durgapur. The mail was accompanied by the scanned copy of the offer letter and the renumeration package. For my perusal. (I didn’t really have to write the last sentence, but I don’t always get to use the word “perusal”, and I think I have a secret crush on the word. So yeah. For my perusal.) I was also told that the hard copy of the offer letter along with the joining kit would be handed over to me on the day I would join them.

Now, I have always had a fixation for joining kits. I rarely get joining kits. Plus, “Assistant Manager – ARM – Opportunity Management” sounded like my kind of thing. But most importantly, who can say no to working with Probaldwip Bakshi! Naturally, I lapped it all up, and sent a merry reply confirming my acceptance.

Mr. Bakshi, the OPM – SH (WB), sent me a short and curt reply, establishing the working relationship and expectations. That’s the kind of boss I have always wanted. Quick on the uptake and sort of British. Succinct and successful. I could only thank my gods for the good fortune. More so, because I rarely get replies.

I sent an immediate mail back to Mr. Bakshi, offering him my undying support in this momentous journey we were about to take together. I also had a few routine questions and clarifications pertaining to the job.

And just when I had started thinking how I would play Tonto to this amazing Lone Ranger, I got a note from Chandrima Dutta, asking me to stop all communication on this subject. Just like that. No, really!

Crestfallen and dejected, I tried figuring this sudden change of behavior towards me. We were on a happy Paribas ride not very long time back, all of us, and now this! My innocent mind could not fathom why would something so bitter and brutal reach my inbox. And while I have always followed the peaceful path displayed by Dr. Martin Luther King, I could not control myself from questioning the logic behind Ms. Dutta’s mail.

Ah, Human Resource people, why art thee so cold, callous and cruel! Not only did Ms. Dutta decide to not write back to me and answer my good-natured, noble-intentioned questions, she also used her continued silence as her strongest weapon to shut me up and crush my child-like enthusiasm. This painful placidity, this sullen stoicism was too much to take for the very emotional me. My plan to make a difference to the world was savagely sabotaged by the world.

I decided to not take up the job. :|

This hasn’t quite been the best experience of my life, but I still believe in the goodness of mankind. I believe in angels, something good in everything I see. I believe in quoting from an ABBA song and not giving them any credit for the same. I believe in honest people getting what they deserve, what is rightfully theirs.

Only, I rarely get mails which offer me jobs. :(

(I later gathered that the email ID of the guy they were trying to write to was vaibhav.vshl@****.com. Clearly, his favorite actor is Ajay Dvgn. His Action Jackson affiliations notwithstanding, I’m sure he makes a better candidate than me, and would do very well at the awesome organisation that SREI BNP Paribas is, blending in with the lovely people in there. All’s well that ends well.)

I could compliment your clever prose all day, and pick out line by line the stuff that made me alternately laugh and shake my head thinking, oh no he didn’t…! But today I really, really want compliment your joie de vivre, your irrepressible spirit, because this spark – of humour, of mischief, of seeing the lighter side of life – is almost completely missing from the world now. Anyone who attains any position where they may influence the world around them for the better, immediately takes it upon themselves to suck the interesting into a black hole of shouldn’t, cannot, absolutely not. In fact, the distinction is most evident in the joyless – and incurious (uncurious?) – replies your essays (no other word for these, these cannot be denigrated as ’emails’) have received from the HR team. If I had gotten a mail like these, I would have first Googled “Vaibhav Vishal” out of morbid curiosity (which I did right now, and it was fairly enlightening), and at least asked if you are THAT Vaibhav Vishal. I have no idea what the consequence of that daring endeavour would have been but that’s why the morbid. This is a tale Pro-Bald-Wip and Ms D will tell at every corporate non-party with rounded eyes as they pass through the various stages of WTF (what IS this? / what the EFF is this? / what the eff is ALL THIS TEXT? / WHO is this? / is this guy effing with us or is this a case deserving of our social sympathy? (gets second email) OMGWTFISTHIS!!!) and I hope you have made their world a little brighter with all the time and effort you invested in creating these gems. You have made a lot of people and me laugh (me on a very cold, very dreary day here in Delhi), but more than that you have reminded me why you’re the BOSS, because THIS is inspiring, creative, out of the box, and a big reminder to me to not get sucked into the dreariness of workplaces, to keep at inner fire burning.

But I’ll be unfair if I say that I did not get anything of value from the SREI team. I’m adopting this wide-eyed-puppy of a sentence: Your portfolio adherence will give the exact weightage of all analysis. Wow, just wow. I love it, so multipurpose, it can answer every office email if wielded correctly. This guy, if he had continued, could have given you a run for your money to the nearest Ganguram, and a shame that he didn’t want to share the delights of Durgapur with you. I don’t suppose they reimbursed you for the waterbed either. Cold.

With your kind persual of the mails by poor blokes from SREI BNP Paribas, i elieve you are best suited for a career in HR. Filling up the mundane life of employees in imaginative and heart warming rejections to all requests and with a pinch of haldi or maybe kumkum. Heave Ho!

Loved it…too funny…are you still seeking hand of women, for holy matrimony, even if they be a little geriatric? We both have so much common…especially the ash wearing and Oh looking upto the haloed HR community…P.S. Write soon. am not willing to give up on a guy with a good sense of humor.